I Investigated Why ChatGPT, X, and 20% of the Internet Crashed Yesterday. This Is Why It Will Happen Again.

It Started at 6:40 AM Eastern Time

I woke up at 7:15 AM on November 18, 2025, grabbed my coffee, and opened my laptop to start my workday.

ChatGPT wouldn’t load. Just a blank error page.

“Weird,” I thought. “Must be an OpenAI issue.”

Then I tried X (formerly Twitter). Internal server error.

Spotify? Down.

Discord? Offline.

Even DownDetector — the website people use to check if other websites are down — was completely inaccessible.

I refreshed. Cleared my cache. Restarted my browser. Nothing worked.

That’s when I realized: this wasn’t just me. This was everyone.

By 7:30 AM, approximately 20% of the internet had gone dark. ChatGPT, X, Spotify, Coinbase, Canva, League of Legends, Valorant, even government services — all…